Paul McCartney, 84, Says Losing The Beatles Felt Like Getting ‘Sacked’ And Being On His Own ‘Was Very Scary’

The Beatles were the only job Paul McCartney had ever known, and then one day the job was gone. The 84-year-old looked back on that frightening stretch Monday night in Los Angeles, where he sat for a 45-minute conversation with filmmaker Judd Apatow after a screening of the Wings documentary ‘Man on the Run.’ “The Beatles break up, that’s been your only job you’ve ever had, and then you don’t have it anymore,” he said, according to Variety. “It’s like you got sacked.”

Director Morgan Neville joined them on stage at the Academy Museum, and McCartney did not dress up the memory. “Being on my own was very scary, because I’d always had the union of the group,” he said. He retreated to Scotland and admitted he started drinking there, with no one around to tell him off. Closer Weekly noted that he compared the period to a breakdown. What pulled him out was his wife Linda and a night in front of the television. They were watching Johnny Cash, who had just put a band together, and McCartney turned to her with an idea. “Shall we start a band?” he asked.

Paul McCartney Still Loves John Lennon

That band became Wings in 1971. It gave him ‘Band on the Run’ and ‘Live and Let Die’ and a second act most musicians would gladly trade a first act for. McCartney has already told part of the story in his book about the Wings years, and the documentary puts faces and film to it.

Starting Wings meant going back to basics in ways McCartney hadn’t experienced since before Beatlemania. Rather than immediately booking major concert venues, the new band piled into a van in 1972 and traveled around Britain, turning up at universities without advance bookings and asking if they could perform.

Students who happened to be on campus suddenly found themselves watching a former Beatle play an intimate show. The concerts were a far cry from the screaming stadium crowds McCartney had known, but they allowed him to rediscover the excitement of playing in a band without the enormous expectations that had followed the Beatles.

Friendship And Friction

On Monday he also made room for the friend he quarreled with in those raw years after the split. “I loved John and love him to this day and always will,” he said, before adding that Lennon could be “a complete idiot” over some things. It was the kind of line only a brother gets to say.

The years immediately following the Beatles’ breakup were particularly difficult for McCartney and Lennon. Their disagreements spilled into their music, with Lennon releasing “How Do You Sleep?” in 1971, a song widely understood as a pointed attack on his former bandmate. McCartney also faced criticism for his early solo work, including the 1971 album Ram, which was initially dismissed by some critics but later developed a devoted following. During the Los Angeles conversation, McCartney reflected on those creative differences, suggesting that Lennon may have expected him to produce more serious music rather than the playful songs he enjoyed making with Wings. Despite their disagreements, McCartney made clear that his affection for Lennon never disappeared.